


The Downfall

by gmartinez12



Category: Batman (Comics), Super Sons (Comics), Superman (Comics)
Genre: Angst, DOUBLE ANGST, Drama, Gen, Redemption, but i think really satisfying in the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-15
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2020-03-05 20:17:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18836011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gmartinez12/pseuds/gmartinez12
Summary: Damian disappears from the world without any explanation. What Jon and the rest of the world's heroes didn't know was that this was only the prelude to a disastrous attack that would leave nothing but ruin in its wake.





	The Downfall

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys, so here's a rare angsty fic from me lol. I got the idea with help from one of my damijon discord friends ages ago. But I was only able to write it out (and get another good friend to make me the best pic for it) now. I don't know how you guys will feel about this genre of work, since you guys might be used to me writing fluff or smut when it comes to damijon, but I hope you enjoy it all the same. As always, your comments and suggestions are highly appreciated, and it will greatly help me improve as a writer, especially as I try making a career out of this.
> 
> Also I hope you guys appreciate the pictures lol. It took me hours redrawing and editing some of those like the one of Jon XD The final drawing is a gift from my good friend neon noir.
> 
> Hey, you! Thanks for reading my fics!!! I really love talking to you guys and meeting new damijon/jondami fans, so if you want to know more about me and my work, and talk and stuff, I have a twitter over here! 
> 
> **https://twitter.com/SonsR18**
> 
> Come and say hi! I post fic updates there and I do comic edits too!
> 
> Also, if you discord, mine is gmartinez12#9930 :D

**The Downfall**

By Gmartinez

 

 

Jon couldn’t have asked for a better life. The moment he’d met Damian, he knew nothing would ever be the same. They’d started a tepid partnership, even a rivalry at one point, but in spite of their glaring differences, they managed to become each other’s closest friend. It wasn’t such a leap in logic, then, when they became lovers not long after.

The years passed with its share of crises and battles, but Jon did his part to keep the peace. Nothing was insurmountable as long as he and Damian were together, as long as their love kept each other safe.

Until it didn’t.

One day, Damian had suddenly disappeared, and in the days and months after, other heroes had gone missing as well. The heroes of the world were too late in realizing that it was the grim prelude to a devastating assault that they would never recover from. As they’d come to know, the missing were already slain, and the world’s defenses were drastically weakened thanks to Ra’s Al Ghul and his shadow army of assassins and villains. Once Ra’s had ensured his advantage, he began his attack.

The heroes mounted a desperate defense, but even the members of the Justice League fell one by one, as Ra’s managed to isolate them and use their weaknesses against them. Even Superman fell.  In all the chaos, Jon mourned for his father, but more so for Damian, since was one of the missing and presumed dead. This was until Ra’s greatest general made himself known to them.

 

 

It was Damian.

Metropolis became ground zero for Ra’s attack, since it was the final bastion of the remaining league members. Damian led a vast army of Ra’s finest soldiers, assassins, mutants and machines as they crossed the threshold of the city limits. He rode atop an armored horse and travelled at the head of the formation with his troops matching his pace. He knew that there were heroes lying in ambush among the buildings, but he paid them no mind. His eyes were set on a solitary figure standing perfectly still in the middle of the road, a red cape billowing behind him in the blood-red haze of the setting sun.

Damian signaled his troops to halt, and dismounted from his steed. He unsheathed a curved sword that glinted an eerie green in the sunlight. He walked purposefully toward the lone hero and pointed his sword. Eyes brimming with insatiable fury, Damian bellowed.

“Superboy!”

Jon raised his head to reveal a bitter and miserable smile.

“Hey, Damian…”

Damian gritted his teeth and ran at Jon with his sword aloft. His army tensed, preparing themselves to come to their general’s aid. Damian charged forward and made to swing his sword at Jon, but Jon didn’t even move. He just watched Damian with eyes that seemed dead to all sensation. He didn’t even grunt as Damian forcefully tackled him to the ground.

“What is the matter with you, Jon!” Damian screamed, standing on top of his former friend.

“I was supposed to stop you…” Jon began, his voice hoarse with the strain of holding back tears. “But now that you’re here in front of me, I can’t even think about raising my hand against you. I still love you.”

“You fool!” Damian shouted. "This is not about us! This is war! You're a hero! Fight me, damn you!"

“Hero?” Jon repeated with a miserable smile. “No, I’m not a hero. I failed, Dami. I failed the moment I lost you. I failed the moment I stopped trying to get you back."

Jon glanced at Damian’s sword, still glinting green in the sun. He gingerly held the edge with two trembling fingers—the green glint of the sword was now obvious to him, it was a kryptonite alloy. Jon raised the blade while Damian was still gripping it by the hilt and pointed it at the ‘S’ on his chest.

“Are you going to kill me?” Jon asked him, but the haunting calm of his voice meant the question was already a resigned acceptance.

“I…” Damian faltered. He stared at his sword in disgust and swiftly threw it at the pavement. “No! We’re supposed to fight! You’re going to fight me!” Damian insisted.

“Why should I fight you, D?” Jon asked sadly.

“Because if you don’t Ra’s army will destroy this city and everything you’ve ever loved!” Damian growled.

“Hasn’t it already?”

Damian blinked. Jon touched his face, and the sensation was so warm and familiar that Damian’s knees buckled. Jon’s eyes were pools of quiet and unending sadness, the brightness of them wiped away by the truth of his words. He was right.

Ra’s attack had already set the world aflame and killed off many of its strongest heroes. Metropolis, the city they were supposedly going to invade and capture, had already sustained heavy damage from several bombing raids. Nearby buildings had blown out windows, entire chunks hollowed out by explosions, and fires slowly crackling in several stories. Cars already lay abandoned in the streets, the families that once occupied them already having died, fled, or taken refuge in bomb shelters. Their attack was only a formality at this point—whatever happened today, Ra’s was already victorious.

“You…” Damian heaved in stuttering breaths. “You were supposed to win. The heroes were supposed to beat back Ra’s and win. None of this was supposed to happen. This is all wrong.”

“What happened to you, Damian?” Jon asked as he sat up.

“He was going to kill you!” Damian seethed.

“If I hadn’t joined him, he would have killed you and your family in your sleep. Ra’s knew about us…I thought that if I joined him you’d be safe, and I just had to wait for the league and everyone to put a stop to it…but what the hell happened? How did everyone lose? What’s left to save?” he waved hysterically at the city in ruins. “There is nothing left!”

“Damian…”

“Jon…” Damian begged, his head hung low. “This is my fault. All of this death and destruction was only possible because of me. I want you to fight me, and finish me off. Please put an end to this…to me. That’s all I want—for all of this to end…that’s why I asked to lead this army here. We’re supposed to fight, and I’m going to die by your hand.”

“Damian, do you still love me?” Jon asked, suddenly serious.

“I never stopped loving you, Jon,” Damian readily answered. Not when I disappeared. And not now, even when I’ve doomed the world.

“We can still do this, Damian,” Jon said urgently. “We can still stop this…there’s still hope.” He hugged Damian fiercely. “Besides, I love you too much…I couldn’t fight you if I tried…now listen, first we have to—“

A wet _thump_ reached Damian’s ears, and he felt Jon shudder. Suddenly, Jon’s arms slackened from the embrace. His mouth hung open on his unfinished plan and his eyes grew wide in surprise. He stared at Damian dumbfounded.

“Jon, what is it?” Damian demanded in a panic. “What’s wro—”

A glint of green tugged at the corner of Damian’s eye. He glanced down and saw the blade of his kryptonite sword sticking out of Jon’s chest, right in the middle of the ‘S’ on his jacket.

Behind Jon, Ra’s Al Ghul shimmered and then materialized. Damian recognized the pattern of light that flashed against Ra’s as the one that accompanied the use of their elite assassins’ cloaking field.

“Good work, my grandson,” Ra’s gloated. “You lured the Superboy into a vulnerable position enough that he could be dealt with.”

Damian stared in horror at the blossoming splotch of crimson on Jon’s chest, and the soundless gasp that came with Jon’s final breath. His hands shook violently as Jon’s eyelids drooped to a close.

“Foolish boy,” Ra’s continued. “He sought to tempt—he offered you false promises of having somewhere else to return to, another chance to betray your cause. You already have the League of Assassins for a home, don’t you?”

The old man’s leer felt like a dagger boring into Damian’s eye socket. Damian’s voice utterly vanished as he helplessly followed his Ra’s with his eyes. Ra’s knelt down and leaned close to Damian’s ear.

“He was offering you _weakness_ ,” he whispered, lingering on the last word with contempt. “With him gone, you have nothing outside the League to distract you from conquest. The League is the only thing you have, now. You’ll thank me for this later.”

Ra’s sneered as he pulled out the sword. He tossed the sword back at Damian’s feet. He turned and walked away without waiting for a response.

Damian stared blankly at his grandfather’s back with tear-stained eyes. He was only dimly aware of the blood soaking his robes and pooling on the ground. Jon’s limp body sagged into him, and Damian still held it in the embrace that his friend had given him while he had still lived only seconds ago. Time seemed to stop. Damian couldn’t tell how long he cradled Jon’s body while kneeling on the coarse pavement, but to him, it felt like he spent an eternity.

With a final deep breath, Damian let go of the corpse and laid it gently on the ground. He retrieved his sword and replaced it in its scabbard, his face impassive and blank all the while. He stood up and walked away. By the time he reached the boulevard where the Daily Planet stood, an army of assassins marched behind him. By the time he’d walked past his and Jon’s old school, a squadron of monstrous man-bats trailed him up above and a legion of tanks flanked him on either side.

Metropolis was leveled that day.

 The remnants of the few remaining heroes arrived to see the body of Superboy, just at the city limits. He was lying on the cracked pavement with his eyes closed, and his hands clasped in front of his chest as if in prayer, as if the last person to meet him had arranged his body to look as peaceful as he could be in death. Before him, the Justice League had been destroyed, and other super hero teams had been routed and scattered. And with Jonathan Kent’s death, the world’s last great kryptonian hero had fallen.

 

 

Metropolis’ favored son had died, and the city had died with him.

The war spread quickly. The League of Assassins had subjugated most of North America, begun invading South America, and encroached upon China’s western borders. Armies amassed in every other continent ready to attack. The world’s countries prepared for war, determined to resist Ra’s Al Ghul’s armies. But among those countries’ leaders were fevered whispers and secret fears—the terrifying rumors about Ra’s greatest general, a youth spawned from the demon himself. Stories abounded about the cities he’d felled and the vast swaths of men he’d killed. They cowered at the tales of the youth’s viciousness—that he’d had no emotions and would sever a man’s head with the blankest of stares. He was the ultimate weapon—the demon’s right hand.

 

********

 

“The war council will meet in ten minutes, my lord,” the ninja said respectfully as he bowed his head.

Damian dismissed the man with a wave of his hand and returned to polishing his katana. He rarely spoke these days. A couple of years after the Metropolis campaign, Damian had little use for words. The ninjas responded to his hand gestures. The servants understood his orders when he pointed at something with his eyes. Ra’s was pleased whenever Damian nodded and bowed. Enemies would flee when he drew his sword.

Damian had no use for words to anyone, but when he was by himself, he’d talk. He’d mutter. Servants gossiped about how the Right Hand would murmur to himself, and with careful whispers, they wondered if he was…broken.  Damian would talk softly to nothing in particular, as if he was in friendly conversation with the floor, or the door, or the bed. But the whispers about his sanity were rarely spread beyond the League’s main keep, because for whatever that ailed the young man, he was still the most skilled killer and the shrewdest tactician in their ranks. That, and he was Ra’s favored. Those who spoke ill of him in loud voices found their tongues served to them on silver platters.

Damian found solace at nighttime, when most people left him alone and assumed that he was asleep. But he never slept, not really. His sleep was more akin to restful daze, and lasted minutes. But Damian never slept. When others slept, Damian was training. While everyone snored, Damian was tinkering. While everyone was oblivious, Damian planned. While everyone was silent, Damian talked.

He talked, and he laughed, and he confessed to none other than his beloved, Jonathan Kent—one that was made of memories and recollections. And while Jon was merely the empty space beside him, Damian talked. And whenever Damian talked to nothingness, he was at peace.

 

******

 

The war meeting had concluded with a chorus of hymns praising the Demon’s Head and his right hand. Ra’s raised his hands to conclude the scripted adulation and the men promptly filed out of the hall. Damian rose from his seat and stood beside Ra’s with an impassive look as Ra’s regarded him with a warm smile.

“Victory draws near, grandfather,” Damian said monotonously.

“Indeed, Damian.” Ra’s replied, clearly pleased. “By month’s end, we will have conquered most of China and India, cementing our rule over the region. This is thanks in no small part to you. You even took it upon yourself to personally visit and join all of our troops in every theater of combat to ensure their success. I could not have asked for a better general.”

“I live to serve the League of Assassins,” Damian replied submissively as he knelt down on one knee.

“Stand, grandson,” Ra’s said as he placed his hand on Damian’s shoulder. “I am proud of you. See what we have accomplished? What _you_ have accomplished? This is the greatness that you deserved, that your foolish father’s family denied you. They were nothing but sacrifices to your glory. You are, after all, my heir and the next Demon’s Head—greatness is your due. ”

Damian nodded stiffly. The sacrifice he spoke of was the murder of the entire Bat Family, one that Ra’s himself had orchestrated. Damian had been told of it the day he sacked Metropolis all those months ago, and was part of the reason he had been so determined to have Jon end his life right then.

“If it pleases you, Grandfather, I offer to you another spoil of war,” Damian produced a sleek black box the size of his hand and handed it to Ra’s. “I’ve found the greatest of my father’s hidden projects, one that took much effort to acquire.”

“Oh?” Ra’s held the box. It was a hard drive emblazoned with Batman’s symbol. Ra’s palmed the box carefully, as if it were a museum curio. “I’d thought that we’ve already captured most of the Batman’s resources.”

“You’ll find this one to be the best.”

The pair walked together in silence until they reached the keep’s central operations mainframe.  Ra’s plugged in the hard drive and waited with bated breath. After a few seconds, all the monitors flared up, and every single one of them was filled with the image of an arch above, a curve below, and a single dot in the middle—a bright blue eye.

“Brother Eye,” Damian said disinterestedly. “Father’s last and greatest creation. The world’s most sophisticated espionage artificial intelligence. The world’s secrets are now at your disposal, grandfather.”

“Show me,” Ra’s commanded, his impatient rasp betraying savage eagerness.

Damian pressed his palm onto a panel until the monitors assented with a shrill electric chime.

 

 

“Brother Eye, online. Welcome, Damian Wayne.”

“Wayne?” Ra’s echoed. His lips curled. Damian ignored him.

“Brother Eye,” Damian continued in a monotone, “Show me the state of all of the League of Assassin’s combat assets, agents on the field, forward operating bases, and safehouses.”

“Confirmed,” Brother Eye droned. A giant world map filled most of the monitors with green dots indicating the League’s troops. Several adjacent monitors showed real-time satellite imagery of the troops in question.

“Show me the state of our surveillance network and any opposing forces,” Damian ordered.

Ra’s mouth opened slightly as he marveled at the sight. Some of the monitors switched to display the various satellites circling the globe, all of which Brother Eye could manipulate at will. Some displayed data on the remaining world armies that remained opposed to Ra’s. Others showed profiles of heroes that were still at large.

“Coordinating our attacks will be effortless with Brother Eye,” Damian finished with a flourish, his right arm proffered to Ra’s an invitation to inspect his work.

“Damian, this is a magnificent trophy! I hardly believed the Detective could have built something so powerful, and now it is ours,” Ra’s said breathlessly.

Damian nodded. His shoulders sagged a little as though an enormous weight had lifted from him. In a tired and weary voice, he asked, “Have I atoned enough?”

“Hmm?” Ra’s replied warily. “Atoned for what, boy?”

Damian didn’t reply, but in his stead, the computers blared in unison, forming a distinctly robotic and expressionless voice.

“You are forgiven,” hummed Brother Eye.

The moment the AI responded, every single screen rapidly switched back to the eye, but this time it was bright red. Monitors that weren’t even turned on flashed with light displaying the red eye. Outside, explosions could be heard, and it didn’t take another minute for the screams to follow.

“What?” Ra’s turned on Damian furiously. “What is the meaning of this?”

“I live to serve the League, grandfather,” Damian said, but this time, he was smiling—the first time in months. “We exist to balance the scales of humanity and weed out the decadent and corrupt. The Demon’s Head had risen, throwing the world out of balance. The world doesn’t need demons, Ra’s. I’m balancing the scales.”

“You dare betray me now?” Ra’s roared. In the blink of an eye, he had his sword at his hand and he leaped at Damian. Steel clanged with steel as Damian’s own katana met his. “You think destroying this hold will stop all of our armies?”

Damian held the man’s gaze steady and answered only with a smirk.

Brother Eye’s monitors switched back to displaying the League’s armies and bases. One by one, the green dots turned red.

“Middle Eastern FOB, compromised.” The AI chimed. An adjacent monitor showed a League base in the Negev Desert exploding, and automated turrets firing on League troops.

“South East Asian FOB, compromised,” Brother Eye continued. Another screen showed a base overlooking Manila harbor explode in a column of fire.

The AI counted another base, and then another, as screens around them showed the devastation in real time.

“But how…?” Ra’s asked in disbelief, but the answer came quickly to him as his eyes narrowed on Damian. “Your deployments to all of our fronts…you used it as a pretense to sabotage our systems?”

Damian merely smiled at him. Meanwhile, garbled audio feed from the scattering troops blared above them.

“This is South American FOB! We’re under siege! All equipment destroyed, armor columns in flames! No one is responding! Help us! Why isn’t anyone answering!”

“…estimated 80% casualties in Ho Chi Minh FOB! Please respond! What are our orders? Do we retreat? HQ, please!”

And so the cries for help all went unanswered, the communications of the League’s military apparatus hijacked by Brother Eye.

“You insolent whelp!” Ra’s seethed, but before he could say anything else, another monitor flickered to reveal a man wearing a two-toned helmet—black on the left and orange on the right.

“Confirming the transmission of all League of Assassin’s troop and sleeper agent biodata. I didn’t think you’d actually pull through, brat. But thanks to you, the resistance can hunt every single one of these League bastards down. If Ra’s is still there, tell him this…for the murder of Rose Wilson, Deathstroke will cull every last soul that serves Ra’s Al Ghul. And after that…I will give you your justice, Robin.”

“The League is many, whelp!” Ra’s bellowed at Damian. “We have far too many agents than your paltry resistance can hope to defeat!” He slashed at Damian in quick succession, but Damian parried almost all of them, and leapt out of the way of those that he didn’t.

Suddenly, the audio feed blared with explosions and shouting. Ra’s spared it a glance and found the wide monitor showing the global positions of all his armies flickering rapidly. The green blips that represented League battle divisions were rapidly being extinguished by blue opposing blips that have inexplicably surrounded it. In fact, every single green League blip was surrounded by a mass of blue ones in every part of the world.

“Our armies…are all mobilizing toward ambushes…” Ra’s mouthed. “You made the AI transmit battle plans to our armies to lead them into traps from our enemies…

“So…you ensured the extinction of the League to the smallest detail, didn’t you, Damian?” Ra’s asked. His fury had transformed into calm, murderous acceptance.

“I have been taught well,” Damian taunted. Ra’s lunged at him, and Damian had to pivot and jump aside to avoid a fatal blow. The room was shaking as more explosions rocked the entire facility. Smoke poured in from the windows and flames licked the doorways. There were far fewer screams by then.

 

 

“You are a fool, boy!” Ra’s yelled as he struck again. He managed to slash Damian’s chest, cutting through the fabric of his clothes and down to his flesh.

Damian jumped back and winced. He touched the cut on his chest as his torn vest fell away, exposing his bare and bloody skin. There, in the middle of the bloody gash, was a dark scar. It was the same one where a sword wielded by a League assassin under Ra’s and his mother’s thrall had run him through and killed him years ago.

“Do you think this exonerates you for all those that you’ve killed? All those that died because of you?” Ra’s unleashed a flurry of strikes that Damian parried, albeit leaving both of them winded.

“No,” Damian admitted. “But Jon would have wanted me to end all this death.” He glanced to his side and smiled fondly at nothing, as if he was seeing an apparition that was only visible to his eyes.

Ra’s roared again. He swung his sword in every direction, meeting Damian’s strokes with his own. But he’d made a mistake—he’d unwittingly allowed Damian to lead him into a corner of the room where the pillars had already caught fire, and large broken beams littered the floor, covering any escape routes aside from the one they’d come in from, right behind Damian.

Ra’s realized the trap when he glanced at the far exit. The moment Ra’s eyes left Damian’s sword, Damian struck, impaling him through his heart. With the last of his strength, Ra’s retaliated and ran his sword through Damian’s side. Both of them fell to their knees. Ra’s glared furiously at Damian one last time before he slumped to the floor.

Damian heaved and coughed. He was finding it harder to breathe with the sword impaling his lungs, and the smoke that filled the room. He stayed kneeling as he placed his hands on his lap.

With a smile, he glanced beside him, to the nothingness, one final time.

“Maybe if I come back, I’ll get super powers again like last time. Then we can both fly together. Arms out…wind…in your face…it never gets old…

 

 

 

******

Almost overnight, the threat of the League of Assassins had ended. No one was sure what had happened. Some say it was a lapse in tactics, as their armies had driven themselves to an ambush on every front. Some say it was saboteurs, since many locations that have since been revealed as their bases had all been found burned to the ground. Sleeper agents posing as citizens in every country were swiftly caught after all of the League’s information was made public. It was as if the fearsome organization itself had imploded from the inside.

In the memorial service that followed weeks later, the casualties were tallied. The dead were buried. Many coffins were empty, serving only as reminders of the bodies that were never found.

On a hillside overlooking the ruins of Metropolis, there was a simple and crudely carved epitaph that read “Jonathan Samuel Kent, loving son and friend.” The crest of house El was etched in the middle. Jon had been hastily laid to rest here years ago after the fall of Metropolis. The few heroes that retrieved his body back then were more focused on fleeing rather than making him anything more than that simple grave.

Around the epitaph were wildflowers that had sprung up in the years since the battle. Nothing else dotted the area other than the grass lazily drifting in the wind. No one had even been to Jon’s grave ever since he was buried in it.

That was why no one knew that a few months after the burial, a katana—now covered in rust— had been driven into the ground beside it, right next to a chipped circular badge that showed a single, barely-readable letter.

To anyone that looked closely at it now, it vaguely resembled an ‘R’.

 

 

 

 


End file.
